Fatherland

Fatherland, the multimedia one-woman show by Candice D’Meza, is a deeply vulnerable exploration into the grief that comes from disconnection: disconnection from family, from culture, from homelands. Using memoir texts written by D’Meza while planning her absent Haitian father’s funeral, the recorded performance combines with a full-length visual film directed by Houston native Nate Edwards (the co-director of Houston rapper Tobe Ngiwe’s music videos). A merging of Haitian spirituality, song, dance, and theatrical performance, the show acts as a container for a collective grief ritual—whereby audiences are invited to participate, alongside the artist, in a ritual designed to honor the lives of our ancestors and acknowledge the complicated legacies of our personal stories.